Even otherwise excellent books published by museums, can tend to gloss over how items came to leave their homelands.
If museums aren’t ashamed of how artefacts were acquired, then why don’t they discuss it clearly.

Benin: Royal Arts of a West African Kingdom (Art Institute of Chicago): Royal Arts of a West African Kingdom (Art Institute of Chicago)
Author: Kathleen Bickford Berzock
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300136773

From:
Modern Ghana

ONCE MORE BENIN: REVIEW OF BENIN: ROYAL ARTS OF A WEST AFRICAN KINGDOM BY KATHLEEN BICKFORD BERZOCK
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Fri, 15 Aug 2008

This book corresponds to what I think the average visitor to an exhibition needs: a short introduction to the subject-matter, with illustrations and sufficient information for the reader to understand the significance of the theme without being burdened by too many pages.

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A response to the earlier editorial article about how corruption threatens the security of some ancient artefacts in Nigeria.

From:
Modern Ghana

SAFEGUARDING NIGERIA’S CULTURAL TREASURES
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Wed, 13 Aug 2008

There are probably few countries in the world that can boast of such an abundance of cultural treasures as Nigeria, one of the richest countries in the world. But Nigeria has also an enormous amount of organizational problems which are also reflected in the cultural area. The constant lamentations about the weak security in many Nigerian museums often cause distress to those concerned about the fate of cultural objects that were unlawfully taken out of the country and which have to be returned in the future. Those conscious of these problems are discussing how to combat corruption in this area and how to achieve high standards of security.

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A commentary of Kenya’s request for the return of artefacts by Kwame Opoku.

From:
Afrikanet

Kenya demands once again the restitution of Artefacts
Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Wednesday, 06 August 2008

As we have often emphasized in our various articles, no one intends to empty the European museums of all the African objects but there must be a selection of those the European and American museums can keep and those the African owners want back home. As the Director-General of Kenya’s National Museums has stated in the report below, we want people in Europe and America to see our artefacts but the most important ones must return home to where they belong. Is this not fair enough? In these days when museum directors and others are talking about the “heritage of mankind”, should the producers of these artefacts also not have their own share of the “heritage of mankind”? Or does that heritage belong only to those who have acquired the artefacts under dubious circumstances?

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Most people would acknowledge that culture is often very much aligned with political borders. James Cuno however would disagree that this is the case.

Kwame Opoku’s response to Cuno’s interview helps to outline the many inaccuracies in Cuno’s contentions.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

From:
Spectator

‘Culture knows no political borders’
Tiffany Jenkins
Wednesday, 16th July 2008

Tiffany Jenkins talks to James Cuno about looting, exporting and owning antiquities

James Cuno is a busy man. I pin him down between two projects: promoting the new Modern Art Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, opening next year, where he is president and director, and the launch of his new book Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage (Princeton University Press, £14.95), which is provoking controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.

He was prompted to write it, he tells me, ‘as an intervention into the war, or should I say “discussion”, between museums, archaeologists and nation states, about who can acquire antiquities’.

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Kwame Opoku in his latest piece notices the same coincidence as I did with the current burst of over-zealous publicity for the British Museum.

From:
Afrikanet

Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Panic and Panegyrics:Comments on “Songs of Praise” for the British Museum

We have had within the last few days a spate of articles, all praising in fulsome language the British Museum and its director, Neil MacGregor. One article, “Is the British Museum the greatest museum on earth” written by Damien Whitworth, appeared in the Times on 12 July.

Another sycophantic article, by Ben Macintyre in The Times of July 10, 2008, is captioned, “Let’s all have tickets to the universal museum”, arguing that “It’s pointless trying to work out who owns ancient art objects. We need to share them around the world”. A third article, by Tristram Hunt, “The British Museum is now our top attraction. If only others would shrug off their deadening ways and follow its lead”, appeared in The Observer on Sunday July 6, 2008.

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Of all the African countries, Egypt has been by far the most successful in recovering their looted artefacts (three thousand in the last three years) from abroad. By studying the way in which they have operated, it is possible for other nations to see more clearly how their own efforts in this area could be re-structured to make them more successful. It is worth bearing in mind though that whilst Egypt has had many successes, it still hasn’t had any luck in securing even short term loans of some of its most treasured artefacts such as the Rosetta Stone & the bust of Nefertiti.

From:
Afrikanet.info

Recovering stolen cultural objects - the Egyptian example
Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Friday, 11 July 2008
ARE THE EGYPTIANS SHOWING THE WAY TO THE REST
OF THE AFRICAN STATES
IN THE RECOVERY OF STOLEN CULTURAL OBJECTS?

From the information we have so far at our disposal, it seems the Egyptians are the most advanced among the Africans when it comes to the question of recovery of stolen or illegally exported cultural items. They seem in any case to be the best organized and the most active in pursuing this objective no matter the obstacles.

And the obstacles here are indeed great. One must contest with the long entrenched European ideology that Western Europe has a God-given right and indeed duty to collect and supervise all the cultural achievements of mankind. The concrete expression of this ideology is found in the ideology of the defendants of the so-called “universal museum”. There are also the large investments in antiquities and the powerful illicit trade in 3000 artefacts antiquities.

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I’m getting a sense of deja-vu here, having read another ridiculously sycophantic piece on the British Museum followed by a response by Dr Kwame Opoku who points out the various flaws glossed over by the first piece. Clearly the British Museum’s Public Relations department has been particularly successful in the last few weeks (to the extent of appearing too obvious?). I see no other reason to explain why there should be three such congratulatory articles about their institution in the press in a single week.

From:
The Times

From The Times
July 10, 2008
Let’s all have tickets to the universal museum
It’s pointless trying to work out who owns ancient art objects. We need to share them around the world
Ben Macintyre

The visitors pouring through the doors of the British Museum represent the triumph of an idea born in the white intellectual heat of the Enlightenment - as valuable today as it was 250 years ago when the museum first opened, but now under attack, despite its fabulous success, as never before.

The British Museum is the greatest universal museum in the world. On my first visit there, as a teenager, I remember feeling physically overwhelmed by the sheer scale and variety of the artefacts, art and ideas on display: Mesopotamian relics, Roman statuary, pharaonic carvings, Viking burial treasures.

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The British Museum’s Public Relations department have clearly been successful in securing various op-ed journalists to write about how amazing their institution is & will continue to be.

A response by Dr Kwame Opoku follows after the first article.

From:
The Guardian

How one cultural vision has lessons for the whole world
The British Museum is now our top attraction. If only others would shrug off their deadening ways and follow its lead
Tristram Hunt
The Observer,
Sunday July 6, 2008

According to its director, Neil MacGregor, the monstrous iron gates of the British Museum have only twice in its history had to be closed to the public. The first time was in 1848, for fear of angry Chartist radicals. And the second was earlier this year, as thousands queued for the museum’s Terracotta Army exhibition.

But boast he might as last week the British Museum was named the nation’s top visitor attraction - thrashing Tate Modern, Alton Towers, and even Madame Tussauds. Instead of Nemesis roller coasters and Will Smith waxworks, tourists and Brits alike clearly preferred the Great Court, Egyptian galleries, and blockbuster exhibitions on show at Great Russell Street. And all the signs are that this month’s Emperor Hadrian exhibition will draw even greater numbers.

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James Cuno has tarred just about anyone asking for the return of artefacts as a nationalist retentionist. He argues that many of the artefacts in question were formed by different nations from those currently located in the same geographic region that are asking for the pieces to be returned. Whilst this may be true though, this makes for a fairly weak case in justifying their retention in somewhere such as New York or London, as they were clearly never produced with these locations in mind either.

Up to this point, Cuno can be seen as merely misguided in his reasoning. The question is though, whether something far more insidious is taking place in his arguments & that Cuno is himself a nationalist retentionist, who plays by a different set of rules to those that he applies to the actions of others.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

From:
Afrikanet.info

IS JAMES CUNO A “NATIONALIST RETENTIONIST”?
Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Friday, 04 July 2008

James Cuno, Director, Art Institute of Chicago, has become known for his constant attacks on those he terms “nationalist retentionists” and who, according to him, pretend to be successors to ancient civilizations and inheritors of their cultural objects with which they have no real connections except that these objects happen to be within the territories of the present nation States.

In his recent book, Who owns Antiquity? Cuno declares: “What is the relationship between, say, modern Egypt and the antiquities that were part of the land’s Pharaonic past? The people of modern-day Cairo do not speak the language of the ancient Egyptians, do not practice their religion, do not make their art, wear their dress, eat their food, or play their music, and do not adhere to the same kind of laws or form of government the ancient Egyptians did.”(1)

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The Universal Museum concept has not been without its critics. Now it seems that (where large sums of money are involved), artefacts can move from one such institution to another, but the possibility of returning them to their original owners is an entirely different issue that should never be considered.

From:
Modern Ghana

STOLEN ART OBJECTS FROM ONE “UNIVERSAL MUSEUM” - LOUVRE PARIS TO ANOTHER - LOUVRE ABU DHABI?
By Dr. Kwame Opoku
Sun, 29 Jun 2008
Feature Article

Although the Art Newspaper published the details of the arrangements on Friday, 27 June, 2008, the contract between Abu Dhabi and France on the creation of Louvre Abu Dhabi was signed last year. See Tom Flynn, Getting ahead in the sand: universal museum in the age of neo-liberalism

If you ever thought there was no money in the museum business and that museums dealt only with artefacts and dead bodies, as one lady told me, the news below should make you reflect. You will perhaps realize that the so called “universal museums” are making huge profits from their stolen art objects. Not only do they keep their entrance fees (where this is required) but also charge for the use of images of the stolen objects by way of copyright. They also sell the expertise they develop through their possession of thousands of objects from all over the world and indeed charge some of the deprived countries for supplying knowledge about their own culture. The report below shows that the Louvre is reaping huge benefits from Abu Dhabi for the use of the name “Louvre”. Part of the fame of the Louvre surely comes from its possession of stolen art made possible by French imperialism. The French boast of using their expertise in building a “universal museum” in this part of the world. One cannot deny the undoubted expertise and experience of the French in establishing a “universal museum”.http://www.archives.premier-ministre.gouv.fr. The financial obstacles outlined in Universal Museum Starter Kit may not apply here but what about the legal and political objections?

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In many ways, once James Cuno’s arguments are deconstructed, one can only conclude, that he has been planted in the museums world by restitution organisations to make their own campaigns appear more credible. Unfortunately though, it appears that he is for real - & more worryingly, is one of the candidates for becoming Director of the Met once de Montebello retires later this year.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

From:
Kwame Opoku (by email)

CUNO AND CREDIBLE MUSEUMS
James Cuno: “There is not a credible museum in this country that has an object in it that it knows to have been stolen from someplace else.”

This statement attributed to Cuno must surely rank as one of the most blatant misrepresentations of our times. http://safecorner.savingantiquities.org/

Cuno and others have engaged a lot of people with the concept of “universal museum” which they now refer to as “encyclopaedic museum”. See “Encyclopaedic Museum Starter Kit”, http://www.artnose.org/museumstarter.htm

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Following Andrew Marr’s interview with James Cuno earlier this week, Dr Kwame Opoku recently alerted me to an amusing satire of the Universal Museum concept, posted on the Artnose website. Cuno has been making his own efforts to re-brand the maligned Universal Museum concept as the Encyclopaedic Museum. Despite the humour of this article though, it does highlight important points - not least that the creation of a Universal Museum is impossible without colossal amounts of funding - a way of keeping it out of reach of all but the wealthiest western nations.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

From:
Kwame Opoku (by email)

A Satirical Approach to the “Universal Museum”.
18th June 2008

There has been a lot of publicity these last days for James Cuno’s book, Who owns Antiquity? including several radio discussions on the British radio station, BBC where the author presented his views and was questioned by expert participants. Cuno repeated his well-known views about antiquities belonging to all and his criticism of those he calls “nationalist retentionists”. The tone of the discussions was very polite but it was also clear that most of those who spoke were not fully convinced by the arguments in his book. Some referred very briefly to the demands for the return of the cultural objects taken during the imperial days - Elgin/Parthenon Marbles, Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone. Indeed, a former museum director expressed the view that it was time to return some of these objects. He also remarked about the fact that some museums bought objects without asking too many questions about their provenance. Despite Cuno’s insistence that the speaker mentions specific institutions known for such a practice, the participant remained unspecific. But it was clear to all that the prestigious museums involved in deals with looters are too well-known and did not need to be mentioned in the small circle of discussants.

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